There’s No Place Like Home

I adore Halloween. It is an excuse to get dressed up…in costume—something the former actor in me loves. This Halloween, I really wanted to have a family theme. So, in honor of the 75^th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz, I decided to go as Dorothy, have Alex go as a lion (the costume was found at Target on sale), and Andy as the Tin Man (he was a great sport). 

I think Andy takes the cake for best costume. 
It is hard to see in the photo, but I made his ax using tin foil, cardboard and a golf club. 

Sitting on the stoop, handing out candy.

Alex loved having his face painted; maybe he has a flair for the dramatic like his mom. 

For our apartment door, I cut out around 20 bats and had them “flying” over the door. I also found a cheap, unadorned wreath at Michael’s, wrapped it in a spider web and added spiders and orange ribbon to it. Alex loved the door and would always ask to go see the bats. 

For our pumpkin carving, I used a pattern for the two big pumpkins (the momma and daddy pumpkins), and carved the baby pumpkin free-hand. They were all so easy, but we got so many compliments on them. Of course, I saved the pumpkin seeds and roasted them—they almost tasted like Chex Mix (see recipe below).

We also baked cookies for Alex’s class—just simple rolled sugar cookies in the shapes of pumpkins and ghosts. After the cookies were baked, we wrapped them in wax paper and tied them with orange ribbon. I made the witches hats using black construction paper and wrote each child’s name on them.

It is magical because it only comes once a year, but I am always a little sad when it is over. We had a wonderful Halloween!

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients

3 tablespoons of butter, melted

 1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of garlic salt (honestly, I add more than the recipe calls for—I usually just eyeball this)

 8 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce

 2 cups raw whole pumpkin seeds

Directions

·         Preheat oven to 275 degrees F (135 degrees C).

·         Combine the butter, salt, garlic salt, Worcestershire sauce and pumpkin seeds. Mix thoroughly and place in shallow baking dish.

·         I sprinkle a bit more garlic salt and Worcestershire sauce over the pumpkin seeds before putting in the oven.

·         Bake for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Apples and Pumpkins

Fall is my favorite time of the year—I love the crisp, cool weather; seeing apple cider on menus; getting lost in a corn maze and then picking out the perfect pumpkin. This year, we went to a pumpkin patch with an apple orchard, as my one of my son’s favorite books is called Apples and Pumpkins—a book we got from the scholastic book fair at his school. After picking out a daddy pumpkin, a momma pumpkin and a baby pumpkin, we picked up a variety of apples so I could make my famous apple pie.

I love the sight of a field of pumpkins. 

Trying to pick up the pumpkin

Someone is very excited.

Entering the corn maze...I was a little nervous I was going to lose my son in the maze. 

Although I love making pies, I was starting to hate making the crust—I felt like a failure when it would fall apart trying to transfer it to the pie dish. So, I decided to try out a new pie crust recipe and I loved it. I will be using this recipe from now on and wanted to share it with you—it is so easy to make. 

Pie Crust

INGREDIENTS 

4 cups of all-purpose flour

1 3/4 of cups shortening (I try to use butter-flavored if I can find it)

1/2 cup of white sugar

2 teaspoons of salt

1 egg

1/2 cup of water

2 teaspoons of almond extract

Original recipe makes three crusts

DIRECTIONS

·      In a large mixing bowl, combine all-purpose flour, shortening, sugar, and salt. Blend together with a pastry cutter until crumbly.

·        In a small bowl, mix egg with water and almond extract. Blend into flour mixture. Chill in refrigerator until ready to use.

Finished pie almost ready to go into the oven (still need to cut vents).